


Can't Screw This Up (cause we're in love)

by squirenonny



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Fluff, Heith Secret Valentine 2018, Keith doesn't know how to boyfriend but he's trying, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-17 10:45:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13657398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirenonny/pseuds/squirenonny
Summary: Keith's never done anything for Valentine's Day. He's never had a reason to. But this year he has a boyfriend, so it doesn't matter that they're caught up in a war and already struggling to find time for each other between missions. Keith can't screw this up.Hunk deserves nothing less than the very best.





	Can't Screw This Up (cause we're in love)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PerrythePlatypusGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerrythePlatypusGirl/gifts).



> Written for Maria as part of the Heith Secret Valentine's Exchange! "All I really want is some cute fluff. Maybe a cute Valentine's Day date where one surprises the other?" Ask and you shall receive my friend~

Keith was aware of Valentine’s Day.

He didn’t have a lot of experience with it, beyond elementary school card exchanges. (He brought in kits themed after airplanes and outer space and hardly spared his classmates’ cards a second thought as he salvaged the foil-wrapped candy and pitched the rest of his brown paper bag.)

But he could hardly have missed the frenzy of red hearts and roses that descended like a flock of angry seagulls every year. If TV commercials and store displays had taught him anything, it was that February fourteenth was a Big Deal, and any man in a romantic relationship who let the sun go down without pulling out some grand, bank-breaking gesture was the worst kind of monster.

That was almost certainly hyperbole on the part of a million marketing departments. Almost certainly.

There was still a little sliver of doubt that kept him awake at night wondering whether the hype, in this one case, was real. After all, this was his first ever Valentine’s day with a boyfriend, and between Voltron’s constant battles and Keith’s busy schedule with the Blade of Marmora, he and Hunk rarely had time to do anything special. Late night comms calls, movie nights on the rare occasion Keith had a chance to return to the castle-ship, the occasional stolen kiss on a joint mission.

Hunk deserved better.

“So...” Keith lay on his back on his bunk at the Blade’s headquarters, staring at his ceiling so he didn’t have to see Hunk’s face on the small, blue-tinted screen projected beside him. “You know Pidge’s calendar?”

“I may have glanced at it once or twice,” Hunk said, his voice warm in the way it got when he was holding in laughter. And for good reason. Hunk had been the one to propose the calendar—originally so they could track birthdays and other important dates. Halloween, New Year’s, things like that. Valentine’s Day hadn’t factored into that conversation, seeing as no one had been in a relationship at the time.

Keith crossed his arms, drumming his fingers against his elbow. “Then you know what’s coming up.”

“St. Patty’s Day?”

Keith turned his head and glared at Hunk, who grinned impishly. “No,” Keith said. “I meant Valentine’s Day.”

Hunk’s head dropped onto his pillow. “Right, right.” He, like Keith, was in his room—a million miles away, dressed in the yellow silk pajamas Lance had dug out of storage for him. The Blade kept a shorter day than the castle-ship, and at the moment they were offset by about eight hours. Keith had just finished training for the day and was headed toward sleep, while Hunk had woken up early to talk to him before he went to make breakfast for everyone else. His eyes were still a little bleary, and his hair—for once not tied back with his orange headband—stuck up at odd angles.

Keith missed him.

It snuck up on him sometimes, this homesickness. (Homesickness? Maybe that wasn’t the right word. He couldn’t think of a better one.) One minute he was fine, his sights set firmly on the mission, his momentum carrying him forward. Then he’d stop, and it would all catch up with him, and he’d want nothing more than to steal a ship and fly back to the castle before Kolivan noticed he was gone.

“So…?” Keith paused, and when Hunk didn’t answer, he tried again. “What do you think?”

“About Valentine’s Day?” Hunk yawned. “I dunno. There are better holidays.”

Keith groaned, turning his face into the pillow. Was Hunk really going to make him say it? “I mean, do you want to do something? A Valentine’s date or whatever? That’s a couple thing, right?”

Hunk cooed, and Keith felt his face flame. He snaked his arms under his pillow, folding the edges up around his ears.

“Stop,” he moaned.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.” Keith huffed. “Look. I don’t know how these things work, okay? I just didn’t want to screw up if you were expecting something big.”

Hunk was quiet for a few second, his breath slowly soothing Keith’s tension. “Keith? Hey.”

Keith turned his head, peering at Hunk with one eye.

“You know I’m always up for doing stuff with you,” Hunk said. “But Valentine’s Day gets blown way out of proportion, and I don’t want you feeling like you _have_ to do something.”

“So no big gestures?”

“No big gestures,” Hunk said. “We'll Skype. Maybe watch a movie. Don't worry about coming over; we both know how it goes when you try to plan these things in advance.”

Keith smiled. “Sounds—” He yawned so wide his jaw popped, then tried again. “Sounds good.”

Hunk’s smile kindled a warm flame in Keith’s chest. “Go to sleep, Keith. I’ll talk to you later.”

* * *

The next week and a half was busy for them both as the paladins launched a campaign against a new region of Galra-controlled space and Kolivan began sending Keith on longer, more high-stakes missions. Keith and Hunk stole time to talk whenever they could or—more often—to leave voice mails for each other.

 _Just a few more days,_ Keith kept telling himself. Just a few more days until the fourteenth. He’d worked things out with Kolivan to have the evening off, and Allura and Shiro had agreed that the universe could do without Voltron for a day. Keith and Hunk had decided to watch a movie during their call. Pidge had found some old Altean action flicks and saved them to a hard drive for Keith, so it was almost like having Netflix.

Lowkey, Hunk had said. A little bit of quality time, but nothing that required a great deal of effort.

Hunk didn’t have to know that Keith was planning a visit to the castle-ship.

Kolivan had been perplexed by Keith’s description of Valentine’s Day. (Possibly that was because the Galra didn’t have a simple, cutesy heart symbol like humans did. The holiday probably sounded a lot more gruesome if you imagined actual hearts being ripped out of people’s chests and used as decoration.) But he’d understood that it was important to Keith and had approved the visit.

So it wasn’t breaking Hunk’s rule. Keith wasn’t spending any money on this, and it wasn’t interfering with his work as a Blade. And they could still have their movie night—just better, because Keith would actually be there.

The last mission before Valentine’s Day ran long, and Keith was half asleep as he flew his ship back to base and debriefed with Kolivan. He’d been tasked with extracting intel from a remote planetside Galra base—and he _had_ retrieved that intel, just not as quietly as he was supposed to. In his defense, two days slogging through a jungle to shake off pursuit was infinitely preferable to a day and a half of sitting perfectly still and watching the guard rotations to sneak in undetected.

If Kolivan disapproved of Keith’s grab-it-and-go tactics, he didn’t say so, and Keith was soon free to change out of his suit, shower, and collapse on his bed. He didn’t see the small box on his pillow until it bumped against the back of his head.

Grimacing, he sat up and examined the box, which was only about five inches to a side, made of the thin Altean metal that reminded Keith of aluminum. Inside, he found two layers of fudge squares separated by a bit of wax paper. A note the size of a business card was taped to the underside of the lid.

 _Thinking of you,_ it read in Hunk’s neat handwriting. It was signed with a yellow heart.

Keith smiled, and almost melted when he tried a bite of the fudge. Soft, smooth, and just a bit crumbly, it was as good as any fudge Keith had ever had—and since he’d started dating Hunk, he’d come to appreciate just how great a feat that was. Without most of the appropriate ingredients and with a stove that didn’t heat the same way as the gas burners Hunk was used to, any sort of cooking came with an extra bump in difficulty. And fudge was supposed to be fiddly in the best of times.

Keith grabbed two more fudge squares before snapping the lid back on and setting the box aside.

He only intended to sleep for a couple hours, just long enough that he didn’t pass out on Hunk halfway through the movie, but the next thing he knew, his communicator was blaring Hunk’s alert code. Keith startled awake, hand going for his blade before he remembered where he was.

Where, and when.

“Quiznak,” he muttered, kicking the blankets aside and launching himself at the storage closet in the wall where he kept his armor. He was dressed in fifteen seconds flat, and he pulled his hood up to hide his bedhead as he dove for the communicator.

“I was starting to get worried,” Hunk said as soon as the connection established. He was grinning, his words light with an attempt at humor that fell flat as Hunk registered the uniform.

Keith cringed. “Sorry,” he said, scrambling for an excuse. He’d wanted to be at the castle by now, right on time for their date. So much for that plan. “Kolivan just left. Emergency call. I—I know this is bad timing.”

“No, it’s all right.” Hunk’s face fell, but he took a deep breath and plastered on a smile. “We can try again when you’re back.”

Had this been a real emergency, Keith’s heart would have clenched at that. Hunk knew as well as Keith how hard it was to find a time that worked for them both to organize anything resembling a date. Keith would have returned from the emergency mission exhausted and desperate just to sleep long enough to be ready for the next job. Even if he’d had a few hours to steal somewhere in there, Hunk would have been called back to his paladin duties, and it would have been another two weeks or more before their schedules lined up again.

Fortunately, this was not an actual emergency, just a matter of Keith neglecting to set an alarm, and he’d be at the castle in under an hour. Still, he felt bad for disappointing Hunk, however temporarily. He leaned down, putting his face close to the comms unit, and smiled. “I’ll see you soon. Promise.”

Hunk’s brow furrowed, and Keith ended the call before he inadvertently spoiled the whole surprise. He spun around, checking that he had his blade and grabbing the box of fudge off his nightstand before sprinting out of his room and down to the hangar. A couple other Blades were still hanging around, and they shouted after him—a mix of teasing and well-wishes that made heat rise in Keith’s cheeks.

He hurried through the pre-flight checks, sent his clearance code to the Blade on duty, and grinned as the flight path appeared on his screen. He gunned it, taking the run at top speed. The spacecraft controller swore in his ear, but Keith ignored the man. He’d flown this course a hundred times, and he was already late. He’d shave off a second wherever he could.

The wormhole was waiting for him as soon as he reached open space, courtesy of Allura. Keith had been surprised by her eagerness to help him with this plan—but he’d hardly had to say the word _secret_ before she was on board with everything.

“Trouble?” Allura asked as she let the wormhole close. She sounded tired, and Keith wondered how long she’d been waiting for him.

“Sorry,” he said, headed for the main hangar. “I just, uh. Overslept.”

Allura chuckled, and Keith relaxed as he set down. At least she wasn’t mad at him. “Well, I’m glad you made it.”

“Me too. Do you know where--?”

“Kitchen,” Allura said.

Keith released the hatch on his fighter and hopped out, energy blazing through his body as he headed for the door. “Thanks, Allura.”

He set off at a jog, but he was sprinting before long, tearing through familiar corridors. It had been late at night when he left the Blade headquarters, but here on the castle it was early morning, the paladins just starting their day off. Keith heard footsteps approaching from up ahead and the instincts Kolivan had drilled into him overrode all other considerations. He spotted a vent in the ceiling and leaped for it, fingers latching onto the grate, and with a single heave he ripped it off its screws. He was up and into the air duct before he could think better of it.

He hesitated, blade in hand as Lance passed by beneath the vent. Keith heard him stop, breathing out a quizzical note as he spotted the vent cover, which Keith had left lying in the middle of the hallway.

For a second, Keith was sure Lance was going to investigate, and then Keith would have to figure out how to explain what he was doing crammed inside an air duck on the castle-ship a few hours past dawn. After a moment, though, Lance muttered something about Pidge’s bad habits and continued on his way, and Keith breathed a sigh of relief.

He considered backing out of the vent and continuing on to the kitchen like a normal person, but… Well, it wasn’t that far away, and this _was_ supposed to be a surprise.

Grinning, Keith shuffled forward, glancing through vents as he passed them to track his position. He’d done an awful lot of sneaking around in vents since joining the Blade, and he made good time as he crawled along.

A few minutes later, Hunk’s voice drifted up to him, tuneless humming interspersed with low murmurs Keith couldn’t pick out. Hunk often talked to himself—or to Keith—as he worked, and Keith quickened his pace, eager to finally get where he wanted to be.

He had just enough time to scope out the state of the kitchens—pink, white, and red-frosted cookies cooling on racks along one counter, some kind of sauce simmering on the stove—before his impatience got the better of him. He sliced a hole in the vent cover with his blade (he already had to replace the vent in the hall; what was one more, really?), hooked his fingers over the lip of the opening, and swung down into the kitchen.

He landed silently behind Hunk, who was busy frosting another batch of cookies, completely unaware of Keith’s presence.

“Smells good,” Keith said, going up on his toes to look over Hunk’s shoulder.

Hunk screamed and wheeled around, his elbow smacking Keith across the jaw. He lobbed the half-frosted cookie like a grenade, and it narrowly missed Keith’s head.

In the next instant, Hunk froze, and Keith offered a chagrined smile as the cookie hit the floor with a soft _tap_ , leaving a smear of red on the wall. “ _Keith?_ ”

“Uh… Surprise,” Keith said weakly, spreading his arms. “Happy Valentine’s Day?”

Hunk’s shock finally melted away, and he burst out laughing as he surged forward, lifting Keith off his feet in a bone-crushing hug. “Don’t scare me like that, man!”

“Yeah, sorry.” Keith relaxed into the hug, breathing in the floury scent of Hunk. The warm, humid kitchen air, combined with Hunk’s own body heat, was trying to remind Keith how little sleep he’d gotten, and he nuzzled deeper into Hunk’s neck without really meaning to. “Didn’t think that far ahead.”

Hunk set Keith back on his feet but kept his arms around him, humming contentedly. The sound reverberated in Keith’s chest. “Eh, it’s endearing,” Hunk said. Keith snorted. “No, seriously!” He turned, and Keith reluctantly pulled back to watch as Hunk put the rest of the unfrosted cookies back on the cooling rack, switched off the stove, and hastily wiped down the counter. “Well, I’m all done here.”

Keith frowned at him. “You've only frosted half the cookies.”

"Coran doesn't like frosting."

Keith crossed his arms. "You've got something on the stove--what is that, anyway?"

"Nothing important."

"Nothing--Okay, who are you, and what have you done with Hunk? You never leave a dish half made."

“I do when my boyfriend flew in just for movie night.”

Keith flushed and faceplanted back into Hunk’s chest. “I flew in to see _you_ , Hunk. Screw the movie.”

“Hey, now. I’ve got a great movie picked out!”

Keith laughed, but he let himself be prodded toward the door, fighting against the yawn that threatened to overtake him. They passed Shiro in the halls, and though he blinked in surprise at the sight of Keith, in full Blade getup with bags under his eyes and flour on his hood, he didn’t delay them for anything more than a quick hello.

To Keith’s surprise, though, they weren’t headed for Hunk’s room. Instead, Hunk took him to one of the smaller common areas on the ship. It wasn’t as spacious as the main rec room, so it didn’t see as much activity. But its big holo screen and sound system had gotten it dubbed the theater, and the team was only too happy to help it live up to its name.

It was already set up for a movie night, the holo screen glowing dimly blue, a pile of blankets and pillows waiting on the couch, the mice curled up asleep atop them. A bowl of popcorn waited on the table with two bottles of alien soda.

Keith stopped in his tracks, staring at Hunk, who was fighting down a grin.

“You _knew?_ ”

“I suspected,” Hunk said, tugging on his arm. Keith went grudgingly, though he pouted as Hunk got comfortable, three pillows under his head and shoulders and another waiting in case Keith needed it.

Keith remained upright on the couch beside Hunk, arms crossed. “Did Allura tell you?”

Hunk snorted. “Please. Allura would never spill something like this.”

Keith narrowed his eyes. “Then how?”

“I know you,” Hunk said simply.

The words buzzed in Keith’s chest, warming him to his toes, and when Hunk spread his arms, Keith accepted the unspoken invitation. He lay down in front of Hunk, head resting on Hunk’s right arm as the left wrapped around Keith’s waist and pulled him back against his chest.

It felt good to be known. To have a home to return to and a boyfriend to cuddle with as an alien movie started playing. Keith reveled in the warmth and relaxed back against Hunk. The mice chittered a protest when Hunk pulled the blankets over himself and Keith, but it was only a moment before Plachu curled up against Keith’s head, the other mice soon following his lead.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Keith,” Hunk whispered. “I love you.”

Keith interlaced his fingers with Hunk’s and pulled it closer for a kiss. “I love you, too, Hunk.”

They were both asleep before the movie was over.


End file.
